'If you focus on what you have left behind, you will never be able to see what lies ahead.'

Thursday, February 20, 2014

That Sunday Afternoon

Around one - thirty, Sunday afternoon: The sun was
bright and hot, but the cool breeze flowing in from the ocean seemed to be apologising on his behalf. I walked into the bus terminal, pulling along a much heavier bag than I had
pulled out of the same bus terminal the morning before. The bag, which just had a
pair of clothes and some other essentials until then was now full of
some fine pottery and other knickknack that I had picked up from some of my
most favourite stores, it was perhaps the most potent reason for
my being in Pondicherry, at a whim.

I had expected the bus to be as empty this afternoon as I
had found it yesterday, in fact the emptiness of the bus last morning had
salvaged me from the shock of discovering its condition: Here I was walking
into the bus stop dreaming of a plush two by two bus and I find an old,
dilapidated and dirty vehicle beckoning me with great élan. Looking at its
condition I had half a mind to take another one but it would have been foolish to expect
another one available at six thirty in the morning that too at such a godforsaken bus
terminal. It had taken me almost an hour and four hundred rupees to get
there -- almost twice the amount of what I had paid as the fare to Pondicherry.
So I went along. I was dead tired and slept
in no time, and had woken only fifteen minutes from Pondicherry.

I have
this strange habit -- a quirk of sorts: However hard
I try I cannot sleep beyond five in the morning whenever I travel, the
positive side of this is that I get plenty of time to myself -- to read, write, take pictures and just be, the
negative,
that I am almost always under rested, but rest is usually the last thing on my mind when I travel. This morning had been no
different. I had
been up since four -thirty and out since five, I had spent almost three
hours sitting by the sea and walking along the boulevard,
and after a scrumptious breakfast of idlis, vadas and two cups of coffee at a roadside stall and a lunch of vanilla ice cream at a
quaint cafe, I was ready to crash in the bus. I had expected it to be as
empty as it was the day before, but when you want something desperately, you
never get it, and here I was boarding a bus that was already full, half an hour
before its departure time.

A little disappointed, I looked for my seat and discovered
it had already been occupied by a young man, next to whom sat a petite young
woman. I politely informed him that the seat 9B belonged to me. He smiled and
expectantly asked me if I could take his seat instead and reasoned that the
girl next to him had a problem travelling on seats that face the opposite
direction of the motion. One look at them and my heart melted: problem or no
problem, they clearly wanted to sit together. Although I too feel nauseated if
I have to travel in the opposite direction for long, but I did not have the
heart to separate them, for I was sure this journey was special to them -- it
was written on their faces. I agreed.

My new seat was on the other side of the aisle and facing
me sat an elderly couple, about the same age as my parents, they had quite a
few bags and even with all the adjustments, there was hardly any space left for
my legs, I inadvertently kept kicking the lady's feet and kept apologising each
time. The backrest of the seat was way too reclined for my comfort and while
trying to adjust it, I discovered that the lever was broken. Next to me was a
young girl, equally distressed with her seat and her feet, struggling with her
backpack that lay in her lap for want of any space below the seat. The sun
burnt the left side of my face and the strong, incessant gush of cold air from
the a/c duct right above my head, chilled the other half of my face. Out went
my desire to sleep.

Now, there is something that not many people know, and
those who do, don't believe: As harsh and rude I appear and as arrogant as I
seem to be, I am actually an emotional fool. And therefore with all this
discomfort that I had inherited along with the young man's seat, I was adamant
not to disturb them, for they were in a world of their own: Smiling coyly to
each other, exchanging glances, talking in hushed voices. I wanted to let them be,
only if I could just be, myself.

The bus was almost out of the city now and the people
around had started to snooze, the gliding of the bus, the warm sun, the cool
air and the sight of all about me sleeping had intensified my desire to catch a
nap, but with my feet lost somewhere in between the floor of the bus and the
bags of the elderly couple and my back totally destroyed by the backrest, sleep was a far fetched dream. I looked out of the window to find peace
but failed -- the road was all too familiar and boring, moreover to find peace
you need to be in peace yourself, which I clearly wasn't.

I looked at the young couple again: The man would have been
around twenty-five, he was tall and big built and had a cute boyish charm about
him, especially when he smiled to reveal a slight dimple. The girl looked
younger and by her facial features you could tell she was from the east. Both
were simply dressed, the man wore a tailored shirt with
contrasting trousers and a pair of floaters -- a sure shot sign of a South
Indian man, though he did not look like one, while the girl wore a white kurta with a grey churidaar,
a grey stole and floaters, both had a backpack each. They made an unlikely
couple -- but were they a couple at all?

In times when people find pride in displaying their
affection and fondness for each other in public, these two were unusually reticent. Although their eyes spoke, so did their faces but the caution with which they
conducted themselves made it hard for me to guess if they were in love already
or in the process of falling in love, the later seemed more probable.

My back had started to trouble me by now. The lack of sleep
in the last three nights and the travelling through the last three days had
taken its toll. I had to sit properly, if not sleep. After much deliberation, I
finally told the young man that I was very uncomfortable in his seat and would
like to sit at my original place. After a little confusion and a whole lot of
adjustment that followed, I found myself sitting in front of them while both of
them now faced the opposite side of the motion, the discomfort of the young
woman notwithstanding (although all through the three hours that I spent
looking at her, I had found no sign of discomfort whatsoever).

The joy of travelling alone and being reluctant to strike a
conversation is in observing the co-passengers -- their habits, obsessions,
behavior -- one can find numerous characters and string several stories sitting in a bus or a train. I
tried too, to imagine their story: Were they colleagues or class mates or maybe just lovers? Did both of them study in Pondicherry
and were travelling to Chennai? Or did they live in Chennai and had come
down for a weekend? Were they in a relationship already? Or were they
just beginning to discover their fondness for each other? It was hard to
tell. But they sure shared something special which reminded me of simpler
times.

The young woman had now dozed off, hesitantly resting her
read on the man's shoulder, the man although awake, glanced into
nothingness. The romantic in me hoped and prayed that he put his arm
around her but he did not, even when her head almost fell off his
shoulder and she woke up with a start. I was disappointed, had a man
done this to me, I would have kicked his backside. The girl did not seem
to mind though and they got back to their music and banter and exchanged an occasional, meaningful glance.

All this while, The Bay of Bengal had been running along the road with just an occasional building here or there, but as the stream of ugly buildings started to make their presence felt, I realised we were close
to the city. I turned
to the man sitting next to me to find out which bus stop would be closest to my place of stay only to find myself answering his questions: Where did I live? Was I in Chennai for work? Did I have
family in Chennai or Pondicherry? If not family, did I at least have
friends? His questions did not seem to end. He found it difficult to
imagine that a woman could be travelling alone, two thousand kilometers
away from home, just for the sake of travelling. In the process, I found out
that he was new to Chennai too and was unsure of where to get off himself. But he had taken it upon himself to help me -- a woman in distress. He took out his newly acquired smart phone, complete with google maps
and GPS and struggled with it for almost half an hour to find me an answer, but could not. Only after he gave up did I ask the young man, who told me that I could
get off at the same place as them. My neighbour was now satisfied -- I had someone to look after me. I went back to
explaining the purpose, or the lack of it, for my trip to him. Thankfully, he got off soon.

In the next one hour that followed, the sights and sounds of
Chennai and its traffic kept me distracted. Also, by now, I had lost all hope
of getting to know anything else about them. Crawling though a sea of cars and buses, we finally reached our destination, the young man
helped me pull my heavy bag down and the woman smiled at me. As I stood at the bus stop, waiting for an auto, I saw them hold hands and beam. I smiled too.